Guncaster Vindicated 3.4.6

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Fureyon
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.2

Post by Fureyon »

To be fair, only the blast from dragonshout does go through walls. The projectile itself doesn't, but if something is within close proximity of a wall, it's pretty much dead. Doubly so if it's in a tight place to boot.
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Rheap
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.1

Post by Rheap »

Dinosaur_Nerd wrote:Updating to 1.2 today.
Rheap wrote:I find a little trouble when you play this mod with some WADs with tons of monsters.

The game LAGS as fuck, barely i see a 1-3 fps when a map have more than 600-800 monsters (Sunlust for example have 6-7 maps with 1500-2100 monsters) and also if i didn't shoot, the lag comes. Toaster mode On, Gore Off and particles Off, unfortunately seems to not doesn't work. My hardware is a i5 2400 and a RX480 and i play more heavier games with no problems.

I know is not your fault, but a Doom engine limit and i want only to report this.
If you can give me exactly which levels are causing the issue in the map pack I can run some tests and try to see how to deal with the FPS lag. If it's something to do with the monsters, I might actually be able to correct it. If the level is just overloaded like NUTS.wad, that's the responsibility of the levels designer.

I've already dealt with issues where the brutal doom stuff included in this mod causes lag when working with E-Day maps, especially map EDAY19 where there are many many monsters and soldiers fighting at the start. I added the Toaster mode effect to all monsters to make this map playable. I'm sure there is something else I can do to make it even more accommodating even to slaughtermaps, but NUTS.wad will probably never run properly, it runs badly with official guncaster, and depending on your hardware may run badly even on nothing more than DOOM2.wad.
(This is a VERY big maybe btw, I might be able to make them work better, but absolutely no guarantees. When you provide me the levels that are causing issues, I will test. In the meantime you can feel free to test Sunlust using the "Old School" monsters if you like).

On a side note, this mod (Guncaster Vindicated) does not work well with map packs that have too many monsters (like Maps of Chaos). They lead to a gold bloat where you become so overpowered that you are just unstoppable and can actually start each level by just buying Extremespheres with all the gold you are swimming in.
Alright, the map pack when i find this problem is Sunlust.wad and the most "laggy" maps that i encounter is: MAP30 (on this map i lag heavily also if didn't move), MAP31, MAP24, MAP28, MAP29. Pay attention to MAP30 beacause it's like a Mignon Nuts.WAD, xD

MAP31 is a strange map beacause he have low enemies (51 monsters), is a tiny map but it lags heavy (like 5-10 fps). Other maps are fine when i don't use the Old Dreadful, except for some maps which the lag is not terrible high.
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thedeathrunner123
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.2

Post by thedeathrunner123 »

i cant seem to find the quick melee/combo in options. did you remove it? :?
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Valherran
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.2

Post by Valherran »

The Vengeful Spirit seems to have a problem with no longer attacking things at random. Ammo counter is full and it would be in open field with no obstacles and it won't shoot the enemy. I have no idea what is causing this, but the occurrence is rare and quite annoying when it happens.
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Dinosaur_Nerd
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.1

Post by Dinosaur_Nerd »

Rheap wrote: Alright, the map pack when i find this problem is Sunlust.wad and the most "laggy" maps that i encounter is: MAP30 (on this map i lag heavily also if didn't move), MAP31, MAP24, MAP28, MAP29. Pay attention to MAP30 beacause it's like a Mignon Nuts.WAD, xD

MAP31 is a strange map beacause he have low enemies (51 monsters), is a tiny map but it lags heavy (like 5-10 fps). Other maps are fine when i don't use the Old Dreadful, except for some maps which the lag is not terrible high.
I've tested these maps, particularly MAP30 and there is definitely an issue with Guncaster trying to deal with all the monsters. This is an issue with the Official version of Guncaster and Guncaster Vindicated, I'm pleased to report that the monsters in Guncaster Vindicated make very little difference in the performance of the mod overall compared to the Official Guncaster.

The issue itself has to do with tens of thousands of Thinkers being generated as the map is loaded. However, if you give the map a few moments to deal with all this, it begins to level out at around 7000 thinkers and seems to be workable at this point. If you keep the gore and particles turned on, I can only imagine that the lag issue will return as more thinkers are generated by the weapons and spawned gore. If you don't know what thinkers are, don't worry too much, think of them as additional resources that GZDoom engine needs to utilize to run, and Guncaster generates a decent number of them, 7000 or more is a bit excessive though.
To put things in perspective, the most taxing level in my re-engineered version of Extermination Day that I plan to include in this mod once Mark is satisfied to release it, has around 5,500 or so thinkers all running for a short period of time with the Toaster_Mode switch turned off. It jumps to a staggering number of thinkers during the Dreadful Nuke, this is the only way I've managed to get the game to jump to over 10,000 thinkers in any level I have played other than NUTS.wad which I used to test Guncaster official vs Guncaster Vindicated on resource requirements.
Video evidence here:
Spoiler:
In summary, I'm sorry to say but I just don't think Sunlust.wad is the best thing to play with Guncaster, it has some textures and sprites that behave badly in the same way that some parts of Plutonia seem to behave badly. It also disables your ability to fly and jump, which seriously cripples a primary aspect of Guncaster. On the other hand, I am able to get map30 to "work" with my seriously overkill machine (computer) without any noticeable lag, I was also able to get it to perform decently on hardware from 2010 (ASUS G-73j ROG Laptop). You may be able to experience this map pack, but I doubt Guncaster will ever perform flawlessly with this wad, as it seems to be overcrowded to say the least.
thedeathrunner123 wrote:i cant seem to find the quick melee/combo in options. did you remove it? :?
Yes, It has been removed, I apologize if this was something you really enjoyed in the beta. I had seriously thought of attempting to re-impliment this, however, considering that you are able to kick and cast while firing your weapon, and the ability to stomp (and as a result kick all surrounding enemies at once) I found no need for it anymore.
Valherran wrote:The Vengeful Spirit seems to have a problem with no longer attacking things at random. Ammo counter is full and it would be in open field with no obstacles and it won't shoot the enemy. I have no idea what is causing this, but the occurrence is rare and quite annoying when it happens.
This issue has been reported in the Official Guncaster thread on page 128 by rowsol:
Ironblast strat bug
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYFlLvBjfX4
All the sudden, the left gun stops firing and stays that way for the rest of the level. It did keep talking though. It has something to do with using a gunzerk, letting it wear off, then using another one. I've been able to reproduce the bug this way. It is still chance as it wasn't 100% to bug out. Killing it off and resummoning it fixes it.

Currently testing a saved game with the bug active, trying to figure it out. Not having much luck, pretty much out of ideas. It seems to stop seeking enemies as the gun doesn't even turn to face them. That's all I know.
I forgot about this one. I've applied a fix that should correct it. It will be in the next patch.


Was making my No-Deaths video today when I was thwarted by a weird bug where I actually somehow died of FallingDamage (while standing on the ground) while I had an Extremesphere (that means I was killed with 300 HP and 400 armor, and invulnerability... yea). I have patched in a more powerful method to absolutely make it impossible to take damage while you are invulnerable, that should prevent this nonsense.
Kesseleth
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.2

Post by Kesseleth »

Apologies for the overly long post, but I figured you would want my thoughts in detail.

Sometimes you just know something is going to be an interesting time from the instant you start. When I loaded up Guncaster_Vindicated.pk3 and heard Armata Strigoi in the background, I knew that this was one of those times.

And yet, Guncaster Vindicated simultaneously is and is not what I expected. On the one hand, it’s the rebalanced and reworked Guncaster I was hoping for, harder to beat and more satisfying. On the other hand, the necessary approach to the game was completely different. Guncaster Original (henceforth Guncaster) felt perfect for slaughter maps. I threw on the biggest, meanest megawad I know, cranked the difficulty to dragon, and proceeded to tear through army after army of demons with absurd spells until it got unplayably framey (for the record, I tested nuts3.wad in vanilla DOOM and I can confirm that it is Guncaster slowing everything down, not just my computer).

Vindicated, on the other hand, requires a… different approach. I initially gave it a shot with the reworked Hell on Earth campaign on Last of your Kind, and it… didn’t go well. It took more than a few tries to just make it through the first level, and it wasn’t until after a handful of attempts that I realized I was playing Vindicated by checking corners, darting in and out of doorways, setting traps by deliberately throwing flaming skulls in chokepoints, and overall being extremely conservative with my playstyle. The weapons are the same. The spells are the same. The game, however? Honestly, not that similar. It’s bizarre, but your rebalance does more than just make the game harder and more interesting - it changed everything.

Not to say it’s bad - I found beating a level more satisfying than in the regular Guncaster, because it felt like something was being really demanded of me beyond holding down right-click until everything explodes. Exactly how much this is going to change once I start unlocking the higher level spells I cannot say, but honestly I don’t imagine Vindicated ever having that same enormous power Guncaster offered or enabling the player to wreck slaughter maps, especially with the notably pared-down spell selection (which is disappointing, but ultimately understandable given your aim of making the game more difficult - the broken stuff simply had to go). It’s just very interesting how much has changed in your rebalance.

I will say, though, that your reworked Hell on Earth campaign has simply not been reworked enough, at least in the initial levels. As of this writing I have beaten areas 1 through 7 and I’ve noticed a few things. There were a couple of what I would call “stupid deaths” which I would deem a little unfair (lighting a stick of dynamite but I was too close to a fire extinguisher and the flame breath blew up that and I died, which is pretty absurd all things considered) but I wouldn’t call that major. What is major, though, is that the player’s ability to fly has broken some parts of the levels. For instance, in the second level there’s a keycard hidden behind some vertical bars that are too narrow to pass though. Presumably there is a switch hidden somewhere which would lower those bars and enable the player to pass though - or they could just hit the fly button a few times, let Cygnis grab on, and hop right over. In a similar vein, level 7 opens (and closes, for that record) in a room filled with a large number of mancubuses, entered by pressing a button which raises a small elevator. After dying a handful of times, I began to think about how I could vary my approach… when I realized that I could hit the fly button a few times, blast the nearest one with the double shotgun, and then fall back into the elevator for a few seconds until they stopped shooting. Repeating that a handful of times let me clear the majority of them, then climb out and finish the level, without ever activating the elevator and giving up my valuable hiding spot. A sufficiently clever player could probably find others, especially if they managed to get more flight boosts.

There’s also a bit early on where randomness can work against the player, to potentially lethal result. The keycard in level 2 leads to a room with a special item in it, which, upon being obtained, opens the door for a number of enemies with guns to fire on Cygnis rapidly. On Last of your Kind, I got a flight boost in that room, but after a few attempts I began to think that this section was impossible. Not “this would require a very skilled player” impossible, but rather “I am dying in about half a second and I’m genuinely not certain it is possible to dodge all of these and survive” impossible. After starting over on Dragon (which was the right choice, by the way), I returned to the room to find an OverHealth, and suddenly the room’s design made a heck of a lot more sense. I still ultimately needed to buy some armor from the shop to beat it, but I think a better player could have managed it. However, a bad roll on that room on a harder difficulty could easily have spelled doom for a player too stubborn to tone it down.

Despite all that, I definitely love what you’ve done and I’m very much looking forward to seeing where the rest of the reworked campaign goes and later try it out on some other, more traditional maps. Personally, I’d like to see more melee options - maybe some extra combos from the shop, or the ability to imbue your fists with fire and punch three times as fast? Whatever comes up next from Vindicated, I for one am certainly excited to see it.

Oh, and one other (super minor) thing: If you switch to your fists your mirror reflection still looks like it's holding a gun.
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Dinosaur_Nerd
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.3

Post by Dinosaur_Nerd »

Whew, it's been a while, and I finally got around to making a full playthrough on the highest difficulty of the Vindicated campaign with draughsuit and no-deaths. It's definitely a royal challenge, I had to change a few things to make everything work better, I was thwarted several times by VM crashes (bugs that crash your session), an infinite loop, and several overconfident cocky deaths... yea I get a bit overconfident sometimes -_- but the deed is done! I have provided the video itself here for you folks! I hope it helps you with your own playthroughs, I didn't find ALL the secrets, but I found a decent number of them before I started to get into the hell levels.
Fureyon wrote:I'll look forward to your video.
Hope you all like it!



More information on the video:
Spoiler:
Now it's your turn!!! Show me whatchu got! Post your own gameplay videos and lets see what kinda tricks you guys can do.
Kesseleth wrote: Not to say it’s bad - I found beating a level more satisfying than in the regular Guncaster, because it felt like something was being really demanded of me beyond holding down right-click until everything explodes. Exactly how much this is going to change once I start unlocking the higher level spells I cannot say, but honestly I don’t imagine Vindicated ever having that same enormous power Guncaster offered or enabling the player to wreck slaughter maps, especially with the notably pared-down spell selection (which is disappointing, but ultimately understandable given your aim of making the game more difficult - the broken stuff simply had to go). It’s just very interesting how much has changed in your rebalance.
I'm so glad you like the idea. This is exactly the reason why I designed this mod in the first place. I wanted to play Guncaster, but I wanted it to be a Challenge. 'Power fantasy' has never been my cup of tea, I just like a really good game. Guncaster is a great game, I just needed to skew it towards what I find fun. I feel like the spells don't really cause much of an issue even later on, they keep their power but don't overpower the enemies once you get to the later stages.
Kesseleth wrote: I will say, though, that your reworked Hell on Earth campaign has simply not been reworked enough, at least in the initial levels.
In the future I may implement some ACS tricks to prevent cheesy gameplay and really pin the player down, but for the moment I'm not planning to do that. If you really want to cheeze the level and be a cheater, you can do that, but was it worth it? DOOM and DOOM2 levels can be cheated simply by jumping, the original DOOM games did not allow jumping or crouching, and John Romero even designed new levels for E1M4 and E1M8 and begged players to disable jumping if they're going to attempt a playthrough.

In regards to traps and how to beat levels properly, watch the video I linked above, everything is done legit, without dying, all while playing bravely, like a man DERGUN! ;)
Kesseleth wrote: Despite all that, I definitely love what you’ve done and I’m very much looking forward to seeing where the rest of the reworked campaign goes and later try it out on some other, more traditional maps. Personally, I’d like to see more melee options - maybe some extra combos from the shop, or the ability to imbue your fists with fire and punch three times as fast? Whatever comes up next from Vindicated, I for one am certainly excited to see it.

Oh, and one other (super minor) thing: If you switch to your fists your mirror reflection still looks like it's holding a gun.
I've got more plans in the future other than just Hell on Earth Starter Pack and E-Day, but I'm not going to be revealing any of them until the actual project is finished. For now, I hope you enjoy all the DOOM levels and map packs you can handle! Tell me which ones you think are the most challenging (and preferably similar in style to the original ID software levels, I'm not a fan of Plutonia removing jumping and crouching) and I will check them out and see if I can beat them!

Melee stratocasters or "powerups" for fists I think are fine as is with berserk, masters of pain, and powersuits. I don't intend to add "spellfists" or anything of the sort, sorry.

On the player reflection:
Spoiler:
Also, Mod update!!!

Here's some details, I've forgotten a bit I think, you'll have to forgive me, I'm totally mad you see.
Spoiler:

P.S.
I'm still working with GZDoom 3.4.1, this might work with GZDoom 3.5.0 but I haven't tested it yet, I'll begin testing for 3.5.0, it will be the version I'm testing for the next update. I'll probably patch an update for 3.5.0 very very soon.
Last edited by Dinosaur_Nerd on Sat Aug 11, 2018 11:30 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Valherran
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.3

Post by Valherran »

Something I forgot to ask about... Any chance on your next update you could add some sort of optional visual indication that your health is low starting around 50% of your total HP? That would help with fresh starts, especially against zombie heavy maps where their guns basically chip away at you like a pneumatic drill.
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Dinosaur_Nerd
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.3

Post by Dinosaur_Nerd »

Valherran wrote:Something I forgot to ask about... Any chance on your next update you could add some sort of optional visual indication that your health is low starting around 50% of your total HP? That would help with fresh starts, especially against zombie heavy maps where their guns basically chip away at you like a pneumatic drill.
That might be possible, I'd have to think about how to display this without getting in the players way, but still making the warning obvious. Things like this are hard more from a visual standpoint than a coding standpoing, but I've definitely thought about it. It may be available in the future, no promises though.
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ate0ate
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.3

Post by ate0ate »

Woohoo update! You know, I feel terribly about my prior stance on the spells you removed. While I don't think the toggle option actually hurts anything gameplay-wise, unless of course you toggle the spells back on, I must admit that your initial decision to not include them at all was probably the right one. Having played much more of unmodified Guncaster 3.1 now I can safely say that the power fantasy playstyle is not exactly my cup of tea either. I can definitely understand the joy someone could get from it, and the catharsis, but it does indeed make the more serious gamer in me cringe a bit. Adding DoomKrakken's monster randomizer helps a bit, but just a bit. To be perfectly honest I have found Guncaster Vindicated to be the most enjoyable, and rewarding, Guncaster experience I have personally had. Thank you for your work!
FraxGamer
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.3

Post by FraxGamer »

So I opened up the ZSCRIPT file and what the-
An explanation would be nice :P
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wildweasel
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.3

Post by wildweasel »

FraxGamer wrote:So I opened up the ZSCRIPT file and what the-
An explanation would be nice :P
I think we need an explanation of what needs explaining. :?
WolfMann
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.3

Post by WolfMann »

So.

After playing Guncaster for a good ole lot of hours (thank you Day Off for the time to do so) I can clearly see how amazing this mod variation is.

But then the blood was gone... and I was sad.
But then I picked up the Augur... and I was happy.
And then I got the Ole Dreadful... and I was happier than those smiley fish crackers.

PS: ARMATA STRIGOI ftw.
FraxGamer
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.3

Post by FraxGamer »

wildweasel wrote:
FraxGamer wrote:So I opened up the ZSCRIPT file and what the-
An explanation would be nice :P
I think we need an explanation of what needs explaining. :?
There's a pentagram made outta 666s and some creepy words.
It sorta looks like a comic I read where a necromancer puts a similiar thing in the code without the //'s and is able to control those who use the programs embedded with such code.
user5124
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Re: Guncaster Vindicated 1.3

Post by user5124 »

Fantastic update- the statue shopkeeper and his commentary add a lot of personality and flavour, and also help you feel you're not alone in the doom universe. I like it.

Found one bug, can't get past map09 in gd.wad. It's a very short map, but the triggers in the map don't seem to work.
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